Lots of good stuff from the Opinion Manufacturing Division today: sex, spies, lipstick-waving crowds, affirmative action.... OK, so the last one is a little wonky. Let's start with scholar Ronald Radosh, an expert on Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who discusses last week's admission by the pair's co-defendant that he and Julius Rosenberg were, in fact, Soviet agents. That acknowledgment, which has since been accepted by the Rosenbergs' sons, should put an end to the left's long-standing argument that the Rosenbergs were victims of government repression:

To many Americans, Cold War espionage cases like the Rosenberg and Alger Hiss cases that once riveted the country seem irrelevant today, something out of the distant past. But they're not irrelevant. They're a crucial part of the ongoing dispute between right and left in this country.

Doing his part for said ongoing dispute, columnist Tim Rutten throws an assortment of jabs at John McCain and Sarah Palin in the course of analyzing Palin's appeal. One factor, he said, is the celebrity politics that once helped Obama and now aids Palin:

Celebrities can be distinguished from candidates in a couple of ways. Candidates have a record to examine and a program to propose. Celebrities have a story to tell. In fact, a good story is the essence of celebrity.

Finally, Najmedin Meshkati and James Osborn, engineers and transportation safety advocates, say "human error" is too simplistic an explanation for the many fatalities caused by Metrolink collisions:

We need an overall shift in how we deal with rail design, construction, operation and regulatory oversight. We need to improve the safety culture of this industry and address human and organizational factors.

On the editorial page, the Times' board urges the State Bar of California to release the statistics it keeps on the performance of white and minority law school students. Sought by UCLA professor Richard H. Sander, the statistics may not prove his hypothesis about law school affirmative-action policies hurting would-be lawyers, but that's no reason to block the inquiry, the board argues.It also welcomes Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe's agreement to share power with rival Morgan Tsvangirai, even though the deal effectively blesses Mugabe's theft of the March election. And it says the bill passed by the House this week to expand offshore drilling is little more than political posturing:

In fact, increased drilling and exploration would have no short-term effect on prices and very little long-term impact. Federal legislators would be better off devising ways to get the government's full share of oil and gas royalties and cleaning up the Interior Department, including staffers' cozy personal -- and we mean cozy and personal -- relationships with industry representatives.